Can you believe this? A Hong Kong restaurant owner paid a record $55,000 for a bluefin tuna in the first auction of the year at the world’s largest fish market in Tokyo. An official at the Tsukiji fish market said the 276 kg (607.2 pound) tuna sold for 6.07 million yen.

Does anybody remember the bluefin tuna runs that swamped the Catalina frontside in the late 1940s? The fish weren’t 600 pounders but now and then we caught 5 to 10 fish each from sportboats. I once caught 10 bluefin at around 25-30 pounds each. If that Tsukiji fish market had been accessible in those days I could have easily supported my fishing expenses for the next 10 years.

Jed Welsh told me that his dad and Zane Grey caught 100-pound bluefin all along the frontside of Catalina in the early 1900s. Jed said the fish were a nuisance. They couldn’t give them away. They caught them, incidentally, by dragging flying fish for marlin and white sea bass.

Halibut tourney

Long Beach Sportfishing kicked off its seventh annual “Pot Of Gold” halibut tournament on Wednesday.

Captain Shawn Morgan will skipper the sportboat “Icon” on through Sunday to his famous halibut grounds where the anglers will try for those barndoor-sized “butts!”

Each week through March 9, the largest 25 fish of the preceeding weeks will enter the lucky angler into the fishoff which takes place on March 16. The entrants can win daily and weekly prizes and also win the overall prize of a years’ free pass on any boat out of the landing. Last year more than $8,000 were given away in cash and prizes.

The ticket cost is $50 each trip out. For more information, call (562) 432-8993.

Boaters

All you small boaters, kayakers and float tubers, the 13th annual San Diego Anglers Open Bay Tournament will be held on Saturday on San Diego Bay. The first prize will be $1,500 dollars and they will pay down to the 25th spot. For more details call the director at (619) 954-2048.

Bad news

Not good news. The DFG’s latest press release announced that Avian Cholera has been identified as the cause of recent waterfowl die-offs in northern and central California. Avian Cholera is a very common occurrence in waterfowl during the winter months, especially during cold spells. The disease is lethal to waterfowl and other water birds and does not affect humans. The Avian bacteria spreads rapidly and the infected birds die quickly. The die-offs can kill thousands of birds in a single incident. The DFG and the U.S. Wildlife Service are asking the public to report dead wild birds by calling (877) 968-2473 or online at www.westnile.ca.gov

Not enough hunting

Duck hunting around the Salton Sea was excellent last week during that high wind and rainy Saturday. It forced the waterfowl off the sea and for the first time this season most of the better hunters limited out on mostly green wing teal. The biggest complaint from the hunters is the regulation of only one sprig allowed in the hunter’s daily bag. Of course there are hundreds of pin-tails (sprig) flying around but hunters can only shoot one bird and that bird is quickly taken. It’s tough on a hunter to watch as many as 50 birds work his decoys and he can’t shoot. There is always a reason for the regulation. Let’s hope that next year we can shoot a couple more.

Freshwater

The Topaz Lake opener was a huge success. The weather conditions were excellent, no wind rain or snow. Anglers scored on two $1,000 tagged rainbows and many limits were taken in the 3/4-2-pound class. Jim Seamon won the big fish prize of $1,000 dollars by landing a 2.7-pound rainbow. Altogether the Topaz Lodge paid out more than $4,000. The tagged trout derby offering cash and prizes will run through mid-April.

Irvine Lake is sponsoring the Martin Luther King Weekend Tournament on Saturday-Monday. It is a daily big fish competition that awards $875 for first place, $425 for second place, $300 for third place and money awards for 4th-10th place. The ten heaviest trout of the weekend Derby will qualify for The Masters Invitational April 12.

A sleeper lake

I have talked about Diamond Valley Lake very little in the past. As I browse the lake through the Net and read about it in different periodicals I am convinced that it is a real sleeper. It is the largest of our Southern California reservoirs with steep banks, mostly of stones and larger rocks, and there’s hardly any shallow water anywhere on its shoreline, which puts the angler into an easier fishing situation. You can cast to deep water from the shore with little effort. Fifteen-foot depths are a mere 20 yards from shore and if you watch the fishing info, most fish are caught in the lake from 5-35 feet deep.